The Alzheimer's Association has deployed 1,000 people diagnosed with, or caring for someone with the disease, to meet with all 535 members of Congress across the United States and urge them to press Medicare for early access to a new class of drugs, beginning with lecanemab, that promise to slow the disease.
The Alzheimer's Association and the pharmaceutical industry say the drug companies are not directly involved in the campaign.
CMS said its framework includes a broader coverage pathway if the drugs receive standard FDA approval. Leqembi belongs to a new generation of treatments designed to slow advance of the disease by removing sticky clumps of the toxic protein beta amyloid from the brain. "It was quite a flurry of meetings, one after another, and, to a person, there is not a person who said that they would not sign on to the ask," Garcia told Reuters. "There was one day where I think I hit five meetings."
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